News & Events

Deepen your constitutional knowledge and enhance your classroom instruction strategies for teaching constitutional topics with Saturday seminars at the National Constitution Center. Teachers will tour the museum’s exhibits, participate in classroom application sessions, and practice civil dialogue techniques. The seminars are free and open to all classroom teachers working with students in grades 5-12. Two more seminars are scheduled this school year: April 18 on Federalism and May 2 on the Electoral College. Go here to register. Read More ⟶

The 2020 AFT Share My Lesson Virtual Conference is open for registration. The conference line-up of 40 free, for-credit professional development webinars runs March 24-26. The sessions span several topics from organizations such as Discovery Education, the U.S. Census Bureau, StoryCorps, NASA, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Topics include: current events and student activism; building inclusive communities; trauma-informed practices and social emotional learning; instructional strategies across the curriculum; STEM; and webinars for teachers, leaders and all-school staff. If you can’t make a session time, register anyway, and you’ll receive a link to view it on-demand after it has aired live. Learn more here. Read More ⟶

The Library of Congress is seeking applications from current teachers of journalism or economics for a Teacher-in-Residence position within its Learning and Innovation Office during the 2020-21 school year. The program description and application details can be found here. Applications are due on Friday, March 27, 2020. The Learning and Innovation team develops and delivers teaching materials and programs to make the Library’s unparalleled collections of primary sources visible, accessible and easy for K-12 teachers to integrate into the classroom. The Teacher-in-Residence program is designed to give an educator a unique professional development experience – a year at the Library in Washington, D.C., working with staff, contributing to K-12 education programs and materials, advising on outreach to teachers, and helping to uncover and make visible primary sources in the Library’s collections. Read More ⟶

More than two dozen summer teacher institutes are offered by federal courts across the country. Federal judges, volunteer attorneys, legal scholars and court staff create realistic courtroom experiences and offer classroom-ready resources for high school and middle school teachers who seek to deepen their understanding of the third branch. Most of these tuition-free programs range from three to five days at courthouses in almost every federal court circuit. Those that are co-sponsored with a law school or university are eligible for education credits. Go here for more information. Read More ⟶

The Center for Civic Education is implementing a multiyear grant from the U.S. Department of Education for Presidential Academies for teachers and Congressional Academies for high-need high school students. The Academies provide high-quality educational engagement in American history and civics. Fifty-one teachers and 102 students from throughout the country participate each year in the Academies Read More ⟶

With lesson plans based on the scholarly works of the Interactive Constitution and classroom-tested materials on civil dialogue, the National Constitution Center’s Classroom Exchanges provide students the opportunity to use their voice and answer constitutional questions about topics that matter in their lives. These online, real-time conversations between your class and another class across the United States build student confidence in sharing their voice and provide students the skills to disagree without being disagreeable.
In addition to providing an opportunity for your students to discuss essential constitutional issues with their peers from across the country, exchanges meet Social Studies, English, and Speaking & Listening Standards through inquiry-based learning, all while promoting SEL skills through civil dialogue techniques. Sign up for an Exchange here or email Exchange@ConstitutionCenter.org with questions about the program.
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